The collection of seminal fluid, for example of birds, has, to date, been carried out with the aid of a collecting container equipped with a funnel above which an operator proceeds to manipulate the animal.
From French Patent no. 82 01 171 of Jan. 26, 1982, filed in the names of Messrs. Robert, Maurice and Bertrand CASSOU, a partial-vacuum collecting device is also known made up of a flexible cap covering a collecting container, the flexible cap being provided with a central orifice in which a cannula for sucking up the seminal fluid is mounted, and with a lateral orifice in which a tube for creating a partial vacuum in the container is engaged, this tube being connected to a pump or to an oral sucking adaptor.
These known devices exhibit the essential drawback of gathering, in the collecting container, a product containing foreign bodies such as dust, plumage debris, particles of food, grains of sand, droppings, which contaminate to a greater or lesser extent, particularly when the user massages too quickly or even violently.
Moreover, owing to the impurities contained especially in the seminal fluid, these known devices do not allow sterile products for preserving the semen to be added to the collecting container.